


Summer Showers

by JeanBiscuit



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, I AM NOT OKAY, the sad ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-06-09
Packaged: 2018-02-04 01:20:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1761669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeanBiscuit/pseuds/JeanBiscuit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A strangled cry escaped from your lips as you wheeled around to help, to do anything.  You shot your hooks into the wagon and sped forward, expelling every particle of gas you could.  You ignored Levi’s shout, you ignored the chaos around you, all you could see was Jean, his face, his terrified face, the muzzle pointed straight between his eyes –</p>
<p>The depressing ending to the chapter 58 cliffhanger</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer Showers

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this because i don't like to feel joy
> 
> there will be a happier ending where jean survives of course coming soon
> 
> also: i realize that the explosive quality of the guns these bad guys are carrying is quite volatile, seeing as poor Nifa's entire face was blown off, but the power in this fic is gonna be equivalent to about a handgun for reasons

Time was funny, you thought. 

Sometimes, it moved so fast that 15 year old you blinked and suddenly you were 18 and graduating into the military.  And others, it moved so slowly that you swore every second felt like an eternity. 

The mission hadn’t gone well from the start.

Almost immediately, the mysterious antagonist in the black hat, Kaney, had fucked just about everything up.

As you rode with Jean and the remnants of the 104th, sans Eren and Historia, you saw men in strange 3dmg gear, wielding guns strapped to their arms, whip by above you, and dread settled in your stomach like ice.  Levi landed in a bloody heap in the wagon Armin was driving, and you immediately urged your horse forward to get orders.

“Don’t follow the hearse any longer,” Levi barked, his hand pressed to his bleeding face. 

“What?!” Armin exclaimed, his hands starting to tremble on the reins.

“They saw through our every move,” Levi continued gravely, blood dripping from the point of his chin onto his shirt.  “We have to abandon Eren and Historia for now.  Their goal was to use the two of them as bait to trap all the Survey Corps members at once.  There are probably more waiting for an ambush up ahead.  The other three have been killed by their hands.”

You sucked in a breath, the ice in your stomach spreading up to your chest.  You hadn’t known Nifa and the other two very well, but the idea of them lying dead on a rooftop made your insides revolt, and you quickly banished the thought.  You heard Mikasa grit her teeth from next to you, you chanced a glance at her, and gulped. 

She looked positively murderous, her eyebrows narrowed dangerously low, her lips set into a growl of defiance.  She had been edgy ever since Eren was taken, and you kept waiting for the moment she would go ballistic and tear off after in him in signature Mikasa style.  You prayed she didn’t, as she was the best one among you, and you were all basically dead if she wasn’t there.

“Armin, use the quickest route to the left,” Levi ordered, swaying slightly, pressing his hand harder to his open wound. 

“Understood.”

“Sasha and Connie, take charge of the horses.”

“Understood!”

“Jean, get on the carriage and prepare to retaliate with gunfire.”

“U-Understood!” Jean stuttered nervously, and you could see the sweat dripping down his face. 

“Mikasa, [First], and I will use the 3dmg to aid our escape.”

“And what about Eren and Historia?” Mikasa asked, her soft, infinitely dangerous tone somehow ringing through the air.

“We’ll have to figure out something else.  And it will have to be after we get out of here successfully.  If you can kill them, do it,” Levi added, looking you straight in the eyes.  “Understood?”

Your insides twisted, and you had the sudden urge to retch. 

You had never killed a person before.  None of you had.  You had watched people die, sure, you had watched friends and comrades die right in front of you.  You had caused bruises and broken bones, and even a concussion once or twice.  But you had never been the one to deal the finishing blow, to drive your blades into someone else’s skull and watch the life drain from their eyes.  It filled you with revulsion.  You would have to throw away your humanity, for the sake of mankind, for the sake of the future of everyone, and you couldn’t help but wonder if it was even worth it.

Mikasa nodded in confirmation and you managed to grit out, “Understood.”

You sensed Jean’s gaze on you, but you couldn’t look at him.  No, you couldn’t look him in the eyes, not now, not when you were about to become a monster. 

“Captain!” Armin cried.  “They’re coming, ahead on our right!  I’m changing direction!”

You drew your blades, and stood on your horse as you had been trained, balancing on the balls of your feet. You pulled your triggers, and you flew.

And oh, were you deadly.  You slashed and stabbed your way through the air, swinging your blades as if they were nothing more than toys.  You felt them rip through flesh and sinew and you desperately wanted to close your eyes.  You didn’t want to see all of this again.  The blood raining down like a late summer rainstorm, the lifeless body falling, forever falling, through the air and landing with a sickening crunch on the ground, the lifeless eyes, the mouth open in the face’s last expression of shock. 

You felt hot tears stinging at your eyes but you forced them down.  You were a soldier.  Soldiers didn’t cry.  Soldiers didn’t show weakness.  Soldiers got the job done, no matter the cost.

As if from far away, you saw Levi release his blade right between one of the enemy’s eyes, and you heard Jean cry in a shaking voice, “Dammit . . . another dead!  How . . . how did it become like this?!”

You glanced over briefly as you were flying after another enemy, to see Jean crouched in the wagon, visibly shaking, the rifle resting on his shoulder threatening to fall.  There was a crazed, cornered animal look in his eyes, such potent fear that you could feel it creeping towards you, wheedling its way into your subconscious.

You heard Armin yell “Jean?!” but Jean’s eyes were still watching the enemy zoom around, and stayed transfixed as one headed right for him. 

“FUCK!” Levi shouted.  “We’re surrounded!”  You went cold.  You watched in slow motion as the enemy, a female, swung around, and pointed her pistol right at Armin’s head.  You waited for the shot.

But Mikasa was too fast.  She flew over there in a burst of speed, viciously kicking the female in the face, sending her collapsing into the wagon.  Jean stood up and skittered away like a frightened mouse, and if it was any other situation you would have laughed.

He crouched, pointing the rifle at her, and shouted in a quaking voice, “Don’t move!”

You heard Armin call Jean’s name, and the female looked up at him, blood dripping from her nose, and you saw Jean go stiff.

It was the hesitation.  Jean had always hesitated.

The female started to rise on shaky arms, blood pooling beneath her in the bed of the wagon.

“I said don’t move!” Jean shouted desperately.  “Do you not understand?!”

In one fluid motion, the woman swung out the gun she was still holding – idiot idiot idiot why didn’t he take her _gun_ – and Jean’s rifle went spinning through the air.  He watched it go, and then collapsed onto the wagon, the woman’s gun aimed straight at his face.

And it was in that moment that it hit you with the force of a thousand Titans.

Jean was going to die.

A strangled cry escaped from your lips as you wheeled around to help, to do anything.  You shot your hooks into the wagon and sped forward, expelling every particle of gas you could.  You ignored Levi’s shout, you ignored the chaos around you, all you could see was Jean, his face, his terrified face, the muzzle pointed straight between his eyes –

“JEAN!!” you shrieked, blades positioned.  You saw Mikasa out of the corner of your eye, and there was a brief spark of hope, she was faster than you, she always had been, but she was too far away, much too far away, and you were too, but you had to make it, you had to you had to you had to –

That was one of the moments, when the seconds inch by, and you saw the woman’s finger tighten around the trigger, you saw a flash –

You had never had good luck.

You were too late.

Much, much too late.

Jean’s hat went flying, floating slowly towards the ground.  You saw his eyes go wide, his mouth go slack, and his arms drop.  There was so much blood, you could smell it, and you could taste the iron on your tongue, that was Jean’s blood Jean’s blood _Jean’s blood Jean Jean Jean –_

You heard a scream rip through the air, and it took you a minute to realize that it had burst from your own lips.  Yelling like a wild animal, you drove both of your blades into the woman’s skull, and her blood joined Jean’s pooling in the bed of the wagon. 

You shoved her body off of the wagon and onto the ground, and you heard it roll away, and you felt a sick sense of satisfaction.  But that all dissipated when you collapsed to the wagon bed, Jean’s blood soaking through the knee of your pants – Jean’s blood Jean’s blood Jean’s _blood –_ and you gently took his face in your hands.

He was cold.  Ice cold.

Everything cracked and shattered within you.  He would never hold you again.  He would never speak to you again.  He would never kiss you again, never smile at you again, never never never never never –

“Jean!” you cried, grabbing his shoulders and shaking them.  “Come on, wake up!  Wake up, we have to get back!  We have to go home!  Jean . . . Jean!”  Your voice had risen to a wild shriek, as you searched his blank, staring eyes for a sign of life, of anything.  “We have to go home, Jean.  We have to go outside the walls, we have to – we have to build a house on top of a hill far, far away from here and live together and we have to save Eren and Historia and we have to save the world, Jean, so why won’t you wake up?!  Wake up!  Wake up, dammit!”  You brushed the blood-soaked hair from his forehead, and your fingers ghosted over the perfectly circular hole, the gaping hole smack between his eyes that was dripping blood down the sharp point of his nose. 

And if it hadn’t hit you before, it hit you then.  He was dead.  The one person you had ever loved, was dead, bleeding, in your arms.

You screamed his name, a wild cry that echoed through the city, ricocheting off the buildings and grating back into your own eardrums.

“Wake up, damn you!” you screamed, your fingernails digging into the sides of his face.  “I love you, you idiot, I have to tell you, you have to say it too, you have to wake up I love you I love you I love you I love you –”

You chanted it, over and over and over again, the words becoming indistinguishable from your sobs, hoping that those three simple words would wake him up, like in those stories you heard mothers telling their children as you listened in at the windows; the fair maiden would confess her love to the handsome prince as he died and he would stand up, good as new, wounds healed, and they would kiss and get married and live happily ever after.

Tears were coming thick and fast, falling down from your cheeks and onto his, washing the blood away as you cradled his face in your hands.  You kissed him then, praying that this would wake him up, that his warm lips would move against yours and then he would pull away and smile at you with those bright, so very alive amber eyes of his, and you would feel a tug in your gut and warmth in your chest and you would _know._

But his lips were unmoving, cold, his amber eyes were dull, lifeless, staring up at the sky, and you realized how much you needed him, how much you needed him beside you.  You wondered how you had ever survived without his warmth. 

You wailed then, wild, desperate cries escaping from your lips as you hugged him close, cradling his heavy, cold body, trying to rub warmth back into it with your fingers. 

You heard the shifting of fabric from behind you, but you didn’t care, you just wanted to stay here, forever, until Jean woke up, because he would, of course he would, he always did, he always made it, he always survived –

“[First],” you heard Mikasa say softly from behind you, but you shook your head wildly.

“No,” you sobbed, clutching Jean to you tighter.  “No, I can’t leave him.”

“We have to go,” she replied, gently prying your arms from his.

“No!  No, I can’t leave him!” you screamed as Mikasa pulled you away with brute force that you hadn’t known she possessed.  “We promised. . . .,” you sobbed, going limp as Mikasa loaded you onto her back.  “We promised . . . that we’d never . . . leave each other . . . I can’t . . . I can’t leave him. . . .”

“I know,” Mikasa said softly, twining your arms around her neck.  “But we have to.”

“No. . . .  No . . . .,” you whispered, clutching Mikasa tightly.  If you were in your right mind, you would be ashamed, ashamed that you were crying and sobbing like a child, clutching onto Mikasa like a lifeline, because in truth, your lifeline was gone, it was dead, shot in the back of a wagon. 

And then the memory hit you like a cart going full speed –

_“Hey,” he said softly, twining his fingers through yours._

_You hummed in response, looking over to him._

_“You gotta promise me something,” he said, his voice serious, his amber eyes intense._

_“Anything,” you breathed with a small smile._

_“You idiot,” he said playfully, flicking your forehead.  You emitted a short yelp of pain and then scowled, sliding your body on top of his and pinning his hands above his head.  Your bodies meshed nicely together, your hips interlocking like puzzle pieces.  Jean’s face was flushed, and he looked up at you in wonder._

_“What did you want me to promise?” you asked, throwing him a cocky grin._

_“That you’ll never leave me behind,” he breathed, his amber eyes meeting yours, and your breath caught in your chest._

_“Why would I, you idiot?” you choked, releasing his wrists and wrapping your arms around him.  “I’ll never leave you.”_

_“Yeah.  I’ll never leave you either,” he whispered, and you burrowed your face in his neck._

_“You better fuckin’ not, or I’ll kill you,” you promised menacingly, and he chuckled, a deep rumble that vibrated through every nerve in your body._

_“I’ll hold you to that,” he mumbled, his hands coming to your hipbones and kneading slow circles._

_“Jean,” you sighed, and he hummed.  “I gotta tell you something.  After this mission.  After we get Eren and Historia back, I gotta tell you something, okay?”_

_“Alright,” he said suspiciously, and you laughed._

_“It’s nothing bad, dumbass,” you chuckled._

_“Good,” he grumbled, and his arms crushed you to him._

_Even though the two of you had already had more than a few trysts in the bedroom, and even though both of you had told the other those three little words, there hadn’t been one single promise of a future.  How could there be, in a world like this?  But still, you wanted to have something to stay alive for, something other than going outside the walls, something other than saving humanity._

_You loved him._

Your arms tightened around Mikasa’s neck and you sobbed harder as the memory came and went like an electric shock, leaving pain and an awful sensation in its wake.

“I . . .,” you choked, and Mikasa turned her head slightly to listen.  She was walking, you didn’t know where to, but it was a slow, steady pace, or, at least, you thought so.  Everything seemed slowed down.  Nothing seemed real.  “I was gonna marry him. . . .  I was gonna live with him on a little house on a hill somewhere, and we were gonna be happy. . . .”  You watched the ground move along as Mikasa walked, and you watched as your tears fell down and made contact, making dark brown splotches, leaving a trail behind you.

“I know.  We all knew,” Mikasa said, and you heard a tremor in her voice.  “Whenever you weren’t at dinner because of duties, he would go on and on about the house he was gonna build you, the life he was gonna make for you.  You were his entire world, you know.  He really loved you.”

“Everyone knew?” you asked, blinking in surprise.

“You two were so obvious,” Mikasa sighed, and you could hear the smile in her voice.  “He’d want you to live, you know.  He’d be so mad at you if you died before you saw the outside world.”

“I know,” you whispered, and you were certain that your fingernails were carving rivulets in Mikasa’s skin, but she gave no indication that it hurt or that she cared. “But what am I gonna do?  What am I gonna do . . . .?”

 “You’ll live.  You’ll fight,” Mikasa said, her voice strong and steady, and you knew she was repeating the words that Eren had said to her all those long years ago.

But it hurt.  Everything hurt.  You felt empty, hollow, like the gaping hole in Jean’s forehead; you were fading, dissipating like mist.  Everything hurt, and you wanted to scream your lungs out, you wanted to cry until there were no tears left.  You screwed your eyes shut.  You couldn’t cry any longer.  You were a soldier.  You were a soldier a soldier a solider – was being a soldier supposed to hurt this much?

“Hey.  [Last],” a gruff voice barked from your right, and you turned your tear-filled eyes to see the Lance Corporal standing there, arms crossed, blood still trickling from the cuts in his face.  “You can walk now, can’t you?”

No, you wanted to say, no, I can’t, I want to curl up on the ground and die and be with Jean and leave this world, but instead you slowly nodded, disentangled your arms from around Mikasa’s neck, and came to a shaky standing on the ground.  Everything seemed to be wobbling, twisting around you, and you grabbed Mikasa’s sleeve for support.

Levi rolled his eyes with an exasperated tch noise, grabbed your wrist, and started to drag you forward.

“Hey.  Kid,” he said, and you looked up.  He was turned away from you, but you could still hear him clear as day.  “It’s okay to cry sometimes, you know.”

“Shouldn’t I be saying that to you, Corporal?” you blubbered, rubbing at your eyes with one hand.

Levi turned around to look at you, his eyebrows raised in shock, and then you thought you saw a ghost of a smile touch his lips, just for a millisecond.

“Maybe you should,” he grumbled, and let go of you, stalking off with his hands in his pockets.

Almost immediately after he was gone, a warm hand slipped into yours, and you blinked, trying to clear your vision.  Armin was standing next to you, tears falling from his face at nearly the same speed and intensity as yours.  His hood was still pulled up, his bangs obscuring his face, and he was clutching something in his hand.  He held it out to you, slowly unfurling his fingers.

It was a ring.  You looked from the ring to Armin and back, obviously confused.

“Jean . . . he . . . .,” Armin stuttered through his tears, and you felt drops of water hit your face.  You looked up, and saw dark clouds racing towards the spot where your group was standing.  “He . . . wanted me to . . . t-to give you this . . . in case . . . in case he . . . .”

It felt as though Armin had just stabbed you in the stomach. 

It was a ring. 

You lifted your other hand, the hand Armin wasn’t clutching, and stared at the silver ring on your finger.  You stared at the silver ring that you had gotten so many years ago, that had so many bad memories woven into its metal, that carried everything that you wanted to forget, everything you had been. 

Tearing your hand from Armin’s, you ripped the silver ring from your finger and hurled it into the mud as the rain began to fall harder.  You snatched the ring, the golden ring from the palm of his hand and stuffed it on your left ring finger.  It didn’t really fit, but you could care less.  You watched the gold catch the rapidly fading light of the sun, and you smiled wryly to yourself.  The bastard must have stolen it.  But somehow the theft made it feel more special, more Jean, and you felt yourself start to cry again.

“Come on, Armin,” you said, your voice cracking and breaking as you took his hand again, the ring cool and comforting on your finger.  “Let’s go.”

Armin hiccupped a response, his words totally unintelligible through his tears, and you felt yours coming to a crescendo again.

Even though you had left Jean’s body behind, broken and bleeding in the back of a wagon, you knew that the ring was all that you would ever retain of him, all that you would ever need to retain. 

You and Armin walked off, sobbing and wailing like children, clutching each other’s hand.

And even though it was summer, and the rain falling from the sky was warm and stifling, you were cold.

You were so very, very cold.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i think i may have done more damage to my emotional state by writing this
> 
> if you have questions or prompts or if you want to ask me why in the hell i would ever write this (idk) then send them to my tumblr: jean--biscuit


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